Women Farmers in American History

The male’s role on a homestead is stereotypically thought of as the farmer. American history suggests that women farmers have always been common and are at the forefront of the present-day farming revolution.

By Audrey Levatino

| August 2015

Women are claiming a larger place in agriculture through all types of farming.Photo by Fotolia/pressmaster

Audrey Levatino shares her experience of running a farm with her husband and offers invaluable advice on how to get started in “Woman-Powered Farm.”Cover courtesy The Countryman Press

Women are leading the new farming revolution in America. In Woman-Powered Farm (The Countryman Press, 2015), by Audrey Levatino, see how much of the drive to move back to the land, raise our own food, and connect with our agricultural past is being driven by women. This excerpt, which discusses Native American and American Women's roles in farming and agriculture through American history, is from the section, "A Call to Farm — A Farm History of Women."

As long as there have been farms and homesteads, there have been women farmers. It’s only natural, when considering the endeavor of farming or even a weekend homestead, to think about the rural women who came before us. What did they grow, why did they farm, and how did they farm? While we want to break new ground (figuratively and literally), we also want a path to follow. For many of us, it is the kitchen garden that lures us into our first taste of country living. We want those fresh-from-the-vine tomatoes and the sugar snap peas that don’t even make it to the kitchen, they’re so sweet and crunchy. We want to pick our own organic baby spinach instead of buying it at the store. And mostly, we want to reap the bounty of our own efforts in a very elemental way—cultivating and caring for our land and nourishing our body and soul. This is both the lure and the reward of country living.

Historically, many women farmed out of pure necessity. Native American women cleared the land, planted the garden, and harvested the crops because men had the jobs of hunting, trading, and going to war. This division of labor dates back thousands of years. The tradition continues to this day, as the second-largest group of women owners and operators of farms and the largest group of minority-owned farms are American Indian or Alaska Native. Ironically, the assignment of primary responsibility for land rights to women in many Native American cultures remains one of the most progressive ideas in rural America today.

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Native American women were permitted land ownership before colonists started farming the lands. During the Civil War, it wasn’t uncommon for every husband and brother on a farm to be killed in the war, leaving only women behind. These farms were ultimately taken from the women and given over to other men to oversee. But not before the women had put in so much of the work to keep them running.

Following the Civil War this type of shift came during wartime, as men left to fight for their country, leaving behind on the farm households of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm.

During World Wars I and II, stories of women actively involved in horticulture and agriculture are well documented. The governments of Britain and the United States used the propaganda of patriotism to recruit women to work on farms in “A Call to Farms,” and to raise food in whatever city spaces they could find. These Victory Gardens of the Women’s Land Army did more than help nations in need of food and workers, they motivated generations of women to take risks, try something new, and push the boundaries of education and occupation that had been conscribed by men. In fact, these wartime efforts of women to grow crops and raise livestock were a significant stepping-stone to women’s obtaining the rights to vote and to own property.

From Victory Gardens to today’s women-run farms, land has often found its way into the care of women in the absence of men to work it. Women live longer than men, so women often survive their husband, and are left behind to keep the farm going, or at least scrabble enough out of the property to keep themselves and their households fed and sheltered. University researchers have estimated more than 200 million acres of farmland in the United States will change hands by 2027, with women potentially owning a majority of the land.

Women of the last century preserved their knowledge through gardening and unconsciously (or maybe consciously) bided their time. Only since 1982 have women enjoyed equal inheritance rights to land when their spouse died. Recently this struggle has evolved to include changing the way we
practice farming, as well as the way our society views farms and farming. Women now lead the way in sustainable and humane agricultural practices, conservation of the land they own, and returning farming to its roots in the community. Women-operated farms tend to be diverse, whereas men lead the way in grain and cattle farming.

The value of farmwork is obvious and tangible. What is not always so obvious is who is doing that farmwork. Up until the 2002 Census of Agriculture, data were collected on only one principal operator (person in charge of day-to-day decisions) of a farm, and this person was usually a male. This approach overlooked the many instances of farms that were comanaged, often by husband and wife. In 2007 the National Agricultural Statistics Service further improved its data collection to include small, minority, female, and limited-resource farm operators. As these new data were compiled, it became clear that more and more women own and operate farms in the United States than was previously known. Although farming is stereotypically considered a male profession, the 2012 farm census shows that women run about 14 percent of the nation’s farms, and this is thought to be a big underestimate, as many small farms are undercounted. Women are claiming a larger place in agriculture, through all types of farming and in many different ways.

This excerpt has been reprinted with permission from Woman-Powered Farm­, by Audrey Levatino and published by The Countryman Press, 2015. Buy this book from our store: Woman-Powered Farm.

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